Poll: Blacks say whites have an edge

Fifty years after the March on Washington, many African-Americans say they still feel that whites have a better chance to get jobs, according to a new poll.

U.S. blacks have felt disadvantaged versus whites in connection with job opportunities in all but a few years since 1963, a Gallup poll on Wednesday found. While 60 percent of African-Americans today say whites have better opportunities than blacks to get jobs, just 39 percent say they believe whites and blacks have equal opportunities to get jobs for which they are qualified.

Pollster Jeffrey Jones wrote that the results “suggest some progress on this front in the 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech laid out his vision of racial equality in the United States.”

“However, with blacks continuing to feel the odds are stacked against them in hiring, [the results] suggest King’s vision has not been fully realized in this respect,” he wrote.

In terms of educational opportunities, 56 percent of blacks say they think black and white children have the same opportunity in their communities to get a good education, with 43 percent saying they do not.

Overall, in the 50 years since the March on Washington, “many blacks — in some cases, a majority — feel that blacks do not have equality with whites in matters of jobs, education, and housing,” the pollster wrote.

“And at least four in 10 blacks perceive racial discrimination as a major factor in explaining why blacks have generally lower standards of living than whites, and why blacks are imprisoned at higher rates than whites,” Jones added. “Americans as a whole are more positive about equal opportunities for blacks than blacks themselves are. Thus, Americans overall may see the United States as closer to realizing King’s vision than blacks do.”